Conference cookie::notes$archive:cd_v1

363.0. "Sony/Audio CD presentation" by AMBER::KAEPPLEIN () Wed May 21 1986 14:28

    Here is a copy of what I sent out to net.audio last night, and put
    in audio.note instead of here where cd people can read it.
    
    
    This evening I attended the Boston presentation of the Audio/Sony
road show starring Len Feldman.  Len is middle aged, speaks well,
and is congenial (except when talking about The Absolute Sound).  He
freely admits his hearing only extends to about 16 and a half kilohertz.

The event was held in a function room of the Wellsley Inn.  Bill Bell,
owner of the Music Box was the local host and provided the Threshold
amplification and Klipsh speakers.  Several Sony sales/marketing men were
on hand and could be readily identified by their well-groomed appearance.

Sony has solved some more problems with their new fourth (fifth?, I've
lost count) generation machines.  The Mark II series of the 302 on up
players will finally have dual digital to analogue converters for zero
phase shift (in the player anyway, recorders are a whole different story).
The new transport has an anti-resonant ceramic material in it to attenuate
vibrations that cause errors (experimenters: try Sorbathane).  Also, Len
hinted at the use of opto-couplers.  These will help reduce the amount of
high frequency noise in the analog output circuitry - very much needed.
The Sony 302 Mk II could well be the best machine to modify for premium
sound at a reasonable price - if it has the opto-isolators.

A new product demonstrated was a digital surround sound processor.  This box
takes analog input containing a Dolby encoded rear channel, converts the signal
to digital, extracts the rear channel data digitally, and then converts the
output to analog (all in 16 bits).  A slide of the pulse response of an
unnamed decoder vs the Sony showed how dreadfull the standard box was.

We were treated to two scenes for Mad Max in the Thunderdome.  While the
airplane flying overhead was good, I was awed by a scene in a tent.  This
tent is the only one I know that reverberates!  Tina Turner's footsteps
echoed!  And on sand, no less!!!!  Such realism :-)

Technical discussion with Mr. Feldman and the Sony reps were fruitless.
New recorders with less phase shift and ringing are on the way, but they
couldn't tell me much about them.  Also, they didn't seem to realize that
analog component quality had anything to do with sound quality.

The highlight of the evening was that I met the controversial Judith Reilly.
She discovered that high frequency spuriae found in digital recordings can
damage audio components, especially turntables.  Sort of science fiction's
sonic disrupter actually distroying your turntable bearing.  Interestingly
also, the stuff could damage electrolytic capacitors and increase crosstalk.
I wished that I had read more of her stuff, but I got turned off by all the
controversy and nastiness, and stopped following the subject.  By the way,
she seems quite sane.

That's about it.  After meeting Ms. Reilly, I really had no interest talking
to Mr. Feldman and didn't get to ask what Audio uses for a reference system.
Oh, and two previously mentioned stunts were there:  Putting down Tony
Cordesman's CD player sonic comparison article, and the downplaying of
phase shift.

Mark Kaepplein  [email protected]

***  Two things I forgot to mention:
    
    Sony also has a new servo circuit that lets them track up to 2mm
    spots!  It works by shutting down the servo so it doesn't spaz out
    looking for something to read and end up 3 tracks away.
    
    Also, they showed pictures of attenuation characteristics of various
    digital filters.  The Sony was best at 80db, while the cheap Yamaha
    was 60db, and a Sanyo was only 40db.
    

               <<< DSSDEV::PUBLIC$:[NOTES$LIBRARY]AUDIO.NOTE;1 >>>
                          -< The Emperor's New Audio >-
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Note 457.1                     Len Feldman show                           1 of 2
GRAMPS::WCLARK "Walt Clark"                          11 lines  21-MAY-1986 08:23
                           -< salt on a birds tail >-
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    Sonys biggest problem is they try to solve everything with a scope.
    So does Feldman.  Several years ago Sony produced an open reel
    recorder that recorded and reproduced square waves. Impressive
    as hell on a scope but it sounded pretty bad with music. When
    will these guys realize that folks listen to music with systems
    and dont give a rats... about trick signals on a scope. Oh well,
    at least everyone doesnt believe that "the only difference between
    the sound modern audio equipments is their ability to produce different
    levels of loudness".
    
    Walt

    Re/ .1:
    
    Maybe that's why they used to call their stuff SuperScope.

    One other thing Feldman mentioned was that he drives an '85 Oldsmobile.
    I wasn't surprised.  It seemed consistant.

What is driving an 85 oldsmobile consistent with?

    A "hat" (see carbuffs.note).
    
    It indicates that he is satisfied with mediocre performance and
    great comfort/convenience.  It also indicates that he is not a
    technical wizard.
    
    I may be that he only avoided technical discussions Tuesday because
    he didn't want any negative aspects of digital sound brought up.
    The stunt demonstrating an 11us phase difference was decidedly
    anti-technical/anti-intellectual.  Its kind of ironic that they
    were using Klipsch speakers and Paul Klipsch was the champion of
    doppler distortion.
    
    Feldman printed glowing reviews of all the early CD players despite
    the generally dreadfull sound.  He even downplayed Sony's new
    developments as minor refinements that when accumulated can make
    a small improvement.  I suppose that's true from a mid-fi standpoint,
    but the improvements are important to help bring CD quality up to
    the best provided by kilobuck LP setups.

    dual a/d converters are nothing new, so what's the news?  It it
    the price-class these players are in?
    
    	paul

    The news is that you can finally get dual dac performance from Sony
    for less than kilobucks.